


Four Times He Fell. Five Times He Rose.

by Sirenmika



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Just a drabble, M/M, and i'm just warning u, i have ideas about where this fic will go if i continue it tbh, it will be sad, that i might continue, very very very subtle furiosa/max
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4104175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenmika/pseuds/Sirenmika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nux wakes up in the wreckage of the convoy, hurt and alone, but still not at the gates of Valhalla. </p><p>(Notes at the end)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times He Fell. Five Times He Rose.

The sun was nearly halfway across the sky by the time Nux heard new sounds. Dying was slow for him. It always had been. Even when he tried to die, to sacrifice himself for V8, it was prolonged and put off. Even now, in a crash that had killed nearly every war boy on the convoy, he was still breathing and living and Larry and Barry were still chomping on his windpipe and reminding him of the inevitable. 

Nux had grown used to the quiet in the last few hours. So it wasn’t surprising that he was able to pick up the uneven footsteps that grew closer every second. Scavengers? Raiders? Part of the Apache tribe or some of his own? Fear clamped down on his throat harder than Larry and Barry ever have and Nux kept his eyes strained as far up as he could from where the cab held him, doing his best to catch a glimpse of whomever was venturing through the convoy. 

The footsteps stopped right near the cab and Nux did his best to fend off the dizziness that threatened to pull him back into the black. The first sign of cold sweats and fevers were latching onto him and he wished for anything but. Death would be sweeter than the pain that seemed to accompany his every movement and breath drawn inward.

It was silent for a few more moments, long enough for Nux to wonder if he had hallucinated the footsteps. Yet then, without warning, the screech of metal breaking next to his head filled his ear drums. The groan of metal being man-handled and moved in ways that it didn’t want to were loud enough that Nux seemed convinced they were coming from inside him. From his own V8 planted in his torso. 

Nux’s eyes were screwed shut so tight and he had retreated so far into his own head with fear, that he wasn’t aware that his enclosure was becoming less restricting as the metal seemed to be peeled away from his body with nothing but scrapes and bruises being left in their place. Hands grabbed onto his shoulders and Nux gave a yell as he was heaved upwards and thrown over shoulders already clad with gear. 

“Bloodbag?”

There was no denying it. Even if Nux couldn’t believe that his eyes were not telling any form of truth as they tried to distract his body from the pain that threatened the void of black from before. This was his bloodbag. Those were his blood bag’s pants. That was his boot on the blood bag’s foot. His blood bag was here to save him once more.

“It seems-“ there was a pause as the road warrior got his footing and found a safe path through the metal back to the sand on either sand. “You are not awaited after all, war boy.” 

“What are you doing out here?” Nux asked, glancing in the direction of the Citadel. “Is Capable..? Are they…?”

“Safe.” His blood bag responded, hooking his arm through Nux’s leg to keep him firmly planted on his shoulders. Nux ignored the fire that burned through his support bar and rollcage. Every step seemed to bring the pain of a branding, over and over, on those places. Broken broken broken. Needs mending. Welding. “Looking for my car.” 

“It’s got to be a ways back. Furiosa’s lancer shot Slit’s driver and it peeled off. He was a lancer.” Nux hoped that maybe Slit was alive somewhere in the wasteland, slowly making his way back to the Citadel. Maybe they could still be lancer and driver together, under Furiosa’s rule. Maybe Capable could show Slit the error of his ways just as she had with Nux. Although, a spark rumbled in his chest at the thought of Capable touching Slit’s lips in the way that she had with him. Maybe, one of the other wive’s could show Slit. Maybe one of the other Wives could claim Slit. 

“He drove it. It was crushed between the Rigs while you were in the engine.” A grunt. “Maybe can salvage some parts.”

The statement was like being speared by a fellow war boy. The point of impact was his chest, sharp and harsh. But the fire. The fire from those words blossomed outward and consumed Nux until he was sure that he would be carried to Valhalla right then. Slit was dead? Slit had been crushed in war? Had he been witnessed? Had he had a witness to help him to the gates of Valhalla? The guilt crashed into Nux as the grief continued to burn on brighter. Slit was his lancer. They were supposed to lead each other to Valhalla. Even though Slit had called him a traitor. Called him Filth. 

Surely….Surely, Slit would have witnessed him if he had to. So why hadn’t he done the same? 

The Road Warrior seemed to realize that he had said something upsetting. He mumbled under his breath and Nux felt his head twitch to the side as though he had been hit by an unseen force. “I watched.” 

Nux seemed to understand that this was his blood bag’s form of comfort for him. He had watched Slit die. He had witnessed. Slit had to be at the gates if Nux’s own valiant and immortal blood bag had witnessed him. Nux drilled the thought into his mind until the fire in his chest had burned itself into tinder, still capable of a very harsh pain but at rest until someone tried to wake it once more. 

=======

Nux had passed out very soon after Max had strapped him tightly onto the back of his assault bike. The journey back to the Citadel was nothing but black for him. A forgotten time that would take up no space in his head with painful memories. 

Capable’s hands were the first on him, the War Boys parting for her and looking at her in a similar way that they had gazed at Immortan just a few suns ago. “Where are you hurt? Nux? Nux, I thought you were dead.”

Nux was delirious. Beyond hungry and at the stage where the Aqua Cola had started to take hold of him, just like Immortan used to warn. A twinge of guilt seemed to steal its way into his heart over the Wretched in that moment but then Capable’s hair took up his vision and he was smiling. Oh how he was smiling. She was so shiny. So chrome. And she was safe and he was here. Redredred. So Capable of anything. 

“Nux, We need to know where you’re hurt.” 

“My rollcage.” Nux said, his fingers reaching out to wrap around one of Capable’s long unruly braids. “And my left support bar.” He tried his best to remember what the Organic Mechanic had called them once, during his initial start as a War Boy once the Immortan had picked him from the Wretched as a small child, but the words escaped him. Being a black thumb, it was just easy to adapt to the same language and dialect. He was a car. He was powered by an engine. He had engine parts that needed mending. It was quite simple to him really. 

“His ribs and his left leg.” He heard an exasperated voice to his left say. Furiosa. She was by the doorway, clearly on her way out. In a hurry. Nux just barely was able to glimpse the silhouette of a man receding further down the hall of the citadel, a stubborn tuft of hair sticking up on top of his head like the tail of a bird. Nux watched as Furiosa glanced between them, unsure whether to stay with Nux and tend to his wounds or talk with the blood bag about his future plans. 

His gaze returned to Capable once Furiosa left the room. It was obvious that the Imperator wasn’t exactly needed here. All of Immortan’s former wives had their hands on various parts of his body, as if their fingers could cure even the most hopeless cases of half-lifes. But….why was he so important to them? Why was his broken frame and bruised skin such a matter to them that all of them were tending to him? Larry and Barry were nearly done with him. Before he hopped into his pursuit car to chase down the War Rig mere days before, the Organic Mechanic had told him he wouldn’t last but just a few more cycles of the moon. So why were they using valuable resources on him to prolong his half-life just a few weeks more. Why were they making him comfortable when they could just take him to the gates of Valhalla themselves? Without a doubt, he knew that if he had been left to the mercy of his fellow War Boys or if Immortan Joe had to make the decision, he would have been thrown to the wretched with a stomach full of aqua cola and let their desperate hands make of him what they will. 

“Breathe, Capable. Your War Boy is alive.” Toast hissed under her breath, bumping her hip into Capable’s as she passed a handful of metal rods to one of the older women. Their faces were solemn, save from Toast and Capable who were still enjoying the small moment of teasing that had just passed between them. 

“Need to set his leg now. It might already need a redo.” The older woman’s voice was husky and Nux tore his eyes from the red of Capable’s hair. Leg? Ah! Broken support bar needs to be re-positioned. It took a moment for that information to settle in, the woman’s hands already firmly grasping his foot while a few of the wives held down his thigh. He remembers this. He remembers watch the Organic Mechanic doing this to Rictus after he had taken a tumble from the top of his vehicle on a supply run. Nux’s eyes, frantic, darted back to Capable’s. She shouldn’t see this. This wouldn’t be shiny for her. This would be bad. Unworthy of her sight. 

Nux called out Capable’s name, panic seizing his heart in such a way that he nearly asked Larry and Barry if they had any brothers working their way into his chest. Capable seemed to understand what was going on more clearly than Nux in that moment. Her hands held the sides of his face firmly as she leaned over and let her hair fall around his face. She let her forehead touch his as the wives pulled on his support bar and he screamed, his back arching off the crude medical table that had been used mostly for branding in the past few decades. As he screamed his rollcage seemed to remember that it was also broke It began to painfully constrict, making it nearly impossible to drag in a breath and replace the oxygen that had just been force out of him during his yell. “Nux.” Capable breathed, her soft voice doing it’s best to combat the pain that had coiled around his very being. “It’s okay.” But his breathing wasn’t getting better. Black teased the edges of Nux’s vision and he let his eyes focus on the redredred of Capable’s hair until it seemed to be at the far edge of a tunnel that he wasn’t able to cross through.

It wasn’t Nux’s proudest moment, the screaming, but luckily the void of black came from where he had banished it away and swallowed him whole. He was vaguely aware of the frenzy of voices that bustled around the table he was laid upon, but nothing was strong enough to keep him latched onto the physical world. Pain subsided and so did the fear that he would never take a breath again as his thoughts became as still as his body. If he could hope in the void, he would hope that he wasn’t being dragged to Valhalla. 

As his bloodbag said back as he had pulled him out of the wreckage. 

He wasn’t awaited yet.

**Author's Note:**

> If it ends up being well-loved, I might continue it! It was honestly just something that I wrote during lunch at work while listening to a Nux theme'd playlist and putting together my cosplay items for Comic-Con this year. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! This is my first fic in years and my first fic on this site as well!


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